


This Is The Start

by HubcapsAndAshtrays



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: A little angst, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Awkward Romance, F/F, Fluff, Humor, There's a baby
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-08-02 18:43:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16310639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HubcapsAndAshtrays/pseuds/HubcapsAndAshtrays
Summary: There are three things that Alex Danvers knows to be true:One, there's absolutely no way she’s going to meet this assignment deadline.Two, she might be slightly hungover.And three, she absolutely hates the screaming baby in apartment five.AKA the one where Ruby won't let Alex sleep and Alex comes to the shocking realization that babies aren't, in fact, born with pitchforks.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> I like to think of this fic as Feeling Electric's less eccentric, half-cousin.

Alex wants to scream.

No, what she really wants to do is _sleep_ , but since sleep has been _forcibly_ removed off of the menu by a shrieking, ill-natured infant located a scant four doors down she supposes that screaming will have to do.

The pillow pulled tightly over her ears does little to muffle the piercing, inhuman-like screeching that’s been going on non-stop for the better part of an hour. It’s three a.m. and the eight a.m. lecture that she has tomorrow morning suddenly looks a hell of a lot more optional than it did half an hour ago.

_“WAAH!”_

Alex groans, flopping angrily onto her stomach. Of course their new neighbour had had to come equipped with Satan’s spawn in tow. Floor five had been gifted with an elderly couple who’d baked cookies for everyone, and while floor three had been given a somewhat unsettling eighteen year old, he at least didn’t spend his every waking hour screaming at the top of his lungs as if everyone in the building had personally wronged him.

On the bright side, however, it seems that she would at least be able to clear up some of the ambiguity as regards to her academic career, because now it no longer looked as though she was likely to fail the year but most _definitely_ set to fail on account of a vindictive newborn.

Alex stills as the screeching suddenly stops. She lies frozen with bated breath, unwilling to get her hopes up when the baby so clearly has it out for her.

_Silence._

The relief that courses through Alex’s weary veins is a sensation beyond description. She releases her hold on the crumpled pillow with a sigh, sinking down into the heavenly mattress, determined to make the next four hours the best damn four hours she’s ever had.

The boundary between sleep and wakefulness is a blurry but blissful one, and Alex feels herself slowly drifting off, lulled into a dream about the best ear plugs that money can buy when...

_“WAAAAH!”_

She hurls her pillow at the wall.

###

One of the many advantages of National City’s perpetual sunshine was the ability to wear sunglasses at anytime of the day without appearing at all conspicuous. It made hangovers a hell of a lot easier to deal with and had the added benefit of enabling Kara to remain blissfully unaware of the pounding that was going on in her sister’s head.

The temper that came with spending the night getting to know the sticky floor of a second-rate bar, however, is less easy to hide. Although, Alex is sure that her almost acute lack of sleep is more to blame for her foul mood than the actual hangover itself.

“What's got you so grumpy?” Kara asks, frowning when Alex’s response to her latest question is yet another animalistic grunt.

Alex picks her head up off of the diner table, reddened eyes narrowed behind her shades.

“Baby”

Kara blinks “you’re going to have to expand Alex”

“New neighbour, new baby, it won’t shut up” she mumbles before dropping her head back into her folded arms.

Kara gasps, gleeful. “Oh, i love babies! What’s its name? Is it a boy or a girl?”

“Try devil”

“Alex that’s _mean_ ”

“No” Alex grits, lifting her head and dragging her sunglasses down, in the hopes that the dark circles surrounding her eyes will speak for themselves. “What’s _mean_ is spending every night screaming at the top of your lungs so that your neighbours can’t sleep and end up falling asleep during essential lectures, hence causing them to miss important deadlines!”

Sympathy seems to be all sold out today as Alex’s stressed tirade is met with mild amusement. Kara chews on her bottom lip, visibly fighting the urge to laugh at her sister’s misfortune.

“...And during lunches with their sister?”

“Exactly!” Alex groans “God, i just want to...”  

Kara’s eyes widen at the frustrated fist Alex shakes. Her hands snap upwards, clasping tightly over her mouth as she whispers her next words, visibly scandalized. “You want to _hit_ the baby?”

Alex scowls, wondering, not for the first time what goes through her sister’s mind. “What? Of _course_ not. I just want to go over there and ask her to make the baby stop screaming so that some of us can remember what actual sleep feels like. I mean, does she even know how loud that kid is?”

There’s a sigh as Kara leans back in her seat, suddenly looking as serious as one could while being served what was now their third piece of pie. “I’m sure she knows Alex. Whatever you’re feeling you have to realise that she and her husband are probably feeling it like _eight_ times worse"

Alex huffs into a cup of lukewarm coffee cursing her sister's reasonableness. “No husband” she says, grimacing around a mouthful of the dark sludge. “It’s just some woman and her kid”

Kara frowns “you mean she’s all alone?”

A uncomfortable sensation settles against Alex’s sternum “...I guess” she mutters, trying to ignore the more principled part of her brain currently chastising her for being an ass to what might be a new and inexperienced single mother.

It was a coin that she’d spent the majority of her teenage years on the flip side of.

“Wow, what’s her name?”

“How am i supposed to know?” Alex says, more than a little defensive.

Kara stares at her for a long while before realization quickly dawns on her features. “Alex, you’ve never met her?”

It’s difficult to decide between what was more annoying, Kara’s quiet disappointment in her lack of hospitality towards this complete stranger—as if Alex hadn’t just learnt that her next-door neighbour of two years was in fact named Benjamin and not Jeffery—or the guilt that balled in her stomach, centered on a woman whom she had yet to lay eyes on.

Alex shrugs, fighting the urge to squirm in her seat “what’s the big deal?”

“Well it’s just… i know what it feels like to be all alone in a new place where you don’t know anyone” Kara begins with a sad, nostalgic smile. “Don’t you think that what this woman needs, more than another angry neighbour, is a new friend?”

###

The laptop is about to follow her sanity out of the window.

It’s unfortunately not an exaggeration, fact is, she could use a new laptop and right now, at one o’clock in the morning—an hour that Alex is getting frustratingly familiar with—she can’t think of a more fitting way to dispose of this faulty, good-for-nothing device than by swift defenestration.

Because there are three things that Alex Danvers knows to be true:

One, there is absolutely no way that she’s going to meet this assignment deadline, but that’s old news.

Two, she _might_ be slightly hungover, also old news.

And finally three, she hates the screaming baby in apartment five.

The last one was a more recent development, because up until about ten minutes ago she didn’t actually _hate_ the infant. Hate was a strong word, the power of which should be reserved for serious matters such as mint chocolate ice-cream, eight a.m lectures and Jersey Shore, _not_ babies. But then the word document she’d spent the last hour slaving over had gone _kaput!_ and it had been just enough to nudge strong dislike into pure, visceral hate.

_WAAAAAAH!_

“That’s it!” Alex yelps, marching towards the door.

Alex doesn’t know what the plan is once she comes face to face with the bearer of her tiny nemesis nor does she know what she’s going to say to the woman, but her feet are slipping into worn sneakers and she’s moving down the hall deciding that the rest can be figured out later.

She never counted on a fellow neighbour beating her to the punch being included in ‘the rest’.

It’s almost whiplash inducing, the ease at which her anger dissipates before suddenly switching focus, and it should probably call into question the legitimacy of said anger that it’s so easily able to shift away from apartment five to the tall, stocky man stood yelling just outside of it, towering over a young woman who looks in equal parts anxious and determined.

Alex speeds up as she approaches them, frowning when she notices the tiny bundle cradled in the woman’s arms. Her eyes suddenly lock onto a small, tear stained face peeking out from a pink swaddle.

The flash of protection she feels towards the infant—who couldn't have been older than a few months—and it’s mother who’s attempting to console it, while simultaneously trying to remain resolute under the man’s aggressive stance is not wholly unexpected. Kara had, on more than one occasion teased her about her almost pathological need to play the hero, going as far as to call her ‘Supergirl’ after one particular incident involving a puppy, a storm drain and a combine harvester.

What is unexpected, however, are the events of the next ten minutes.

“Walk it off Joel” Alex says, making her presence known as she finally reaches the familiar man.

The enraged tirade stops as Joel, who has at least a solid foot and a half on Alex, turns, his twisted expression furious.

“Mind your own business kid” he growls, and it’s a clear dismissal.

Alex raises a brow, unperturbed “I guess i wasn’t clear the first time. Move along or else i tell your parole officer about some very _interesting_ smells coming from your apartment”

Looking back, maybe threatening the temperamental ex-con in their building hadn’t been the smartest thing to do, especially since Alex now has his full and undivided attention. Except, even while being gifted with one of the most hostile glares she’s ever had the pleasure of receiving, all Alex is able to feel is glad that the young woman stood in the doorway is no longer the focus of his anger, even if it had meant throwing herself into the proverbial fire.

“Watch your mouth”

Alex crosses her arms in an attempt to look intimidating while clad in torn, plaid Pj’s. “Listen, i’m just a concerned citizen and this?” she says, gesturing towards the space between Joel and the woman. “Is all very concerning, perhaps even more so than the _drugs_ ”

The toasty fire that she’s currently dancing in begins to burn out into blackened coals as Joel suddenly quietens down, watching Alex with a hint of nervousness.

“Stay away from this door Joel” Alex finally sighs, much like a displeased teacher dealing with an unruly student.

He mutters vulgarly before scuttering off with heavy footsteps.

“You didn’t have to do that”

Alex pivots away from Joel’s retreating figure, finally coming face to face with the woman she’s spent countless, bad-tempered nights trying to conjure up an image of. Never in any one of Alex’s fatigue-induced imaginings did she ever predict someone quite like this.

She’s young, it’s the first thing that strikes Alex, and also the most unexpected. Alex isn’t quite sure what she’d expected to be hiding behind door number five, but a girl who looks even younger than her own twenty-three years was definitely not it.

She tries not to look too taken aback as she waves a dismissive hand. “It was nothing”

The second thing that strikes Alex isn’t really concerning the woman at all, rather, it was to do with the woeful bundle in her arms. Again, Alex doesn’t know what she had expected, a tiny pitchfork maybe? Minuscule devil horns? Anything but the smallest smattering of downy, brown hair and impossibly wide eyes.

Tiny cherub lips close around an equally tiny fist as the infant gives a teary eyed whimper, watching Alex fearfully as if she might be the one to start yelling next.

“Oh god, did we wake you?”

Alex’s eyes snap upwards towards the woman’s perfectly symmetrical face, her tired, hazel eyes are widened in alarm and it’s an almost identical, adult version of the expression below.

“No, no” she quickly reassures, and it suddenly hits Alex that even if she had been smack in middle of an REM cycle, stood before a court she would still deny even closing her eyes. “I’m a college student” she says with what she hopes is an affable smile “what is sleep?”

The woman lets out a wishful sigh, “tell me about it”

Kara’s overly reasonable words from the previous day begin running through Alex’s brain like a CNN news-ticker. Before Alex knows what she's doing enough to stop herself her mouth suddenly opens.

“Alex Danvers, apartment two” she says, fighting the urge to shove her hands into her pockets, no better at this whole ‘making friends’ thing than she had been at five years old buried strategically at the back of the kindergarten library.

“Sam” the woman, Sam, says before smiling down towards the bundle in her arms ”and this is Ruby”

Ruby, who punctuates her introduction with a small sneeze, quickly attempts to burrow her head into her mother’s crumpled shirt and it’s almost enough to warm Alex’s chilled, linen clad arms.

“So, wandering around in the middle of the night in Pj’s, is that another college student thing?” Sam teases with a raised brow and it’s clear that she doesn’t believe that she isn’t the cause of Alex’s being here at such an hour.

Alex blinks down at her red and white pajamas, eternally grateful that she threw on a pair that wasn’t riddled with threadbare holes or, thanks to Kara, spaghetti sauce stains. She meets Sam’s slightly amused gaze with as much confidence and certainty as she can muster.

“Of course not, these are my ‘going for pizza’ pajamas” Alex says with an impassive poker face that even Phil Ivey would be proud of.

Freezing her way into probable frostbite quickly becomes worth it as Sam gives a slightly incredulous, although slightly wet laugh and Alex suddenly realizes how reddened and watery Sam’s eyes are, as if she’d been crying or at least on the verge of it.

“At one a.m. Alex?” Sam asks, clearly having trouble believing Alex's bullshit.

Alex grins lopsidedly and shrugs “Is there really a better time for pizza? I could get you some if you’d like?”

And there she goes again, her mouth completely bypassing her brain.

“Pizza? Oh no, i’m fine, i couldn’t-”

There’s a loud rumbling as Sam’s stomach voices it’s vehement disagreement.

“It’s no trouble honestly, i mean i’m already on my way out” Alex says, hoping the lie will ease the growing flush of Sam’s neck. “Unless of course you ask for a Hawaiian, that’s when we’ll have a bit of a problem”

Sam bites her lip, considering for a moment, before breaking out into a sheepish smile. “Ok, give me one second”

She rushes inside her apartment, returning what feels like a literal second later sans Ruby—Alex will later deny that the flash of absolute misery she feels is disappointment—and with a couple of bills, way too much for a single pizza, in her hand.

“Here” says Sam, handing them over. “I want you to keep the change and don’t say no, i feel bad enough already”

A monochrome portrait of Alexander Hamilton glares patiently at Alex as she takes the notes, as if daring her to argue or to even express a hint of gratitude. “Ok” she says, folding the bills into impossibly small rectangles to fit into her pajama breast pocket.

“...Hey, Alex?”

The softness in Sam’s tone causes Alex’s eyes to snap upwards, a strange flittering in her chest

“Yeah?”

“Thank you”

Alex smiles, soft and organic. “Anytime” she says, truly meaning it for what might have been the first time.

So yeah, unexpected.


	2. Two

“...Uh Alex? This is the baby aisle”

“I know that”

“But you’re gay”

Alex rolls her eyes, pointedly ignoring the dirty look shot her way by an elderly woman browsing through the diaper section. “Again Kara, i know that”

Kara strolls beside the shopping cart, an opened chocolate bar in one hand. She shrugs and takes a large bite before responding. “Are you pregnant?”

The neat list in Alex’s hand nearly falls to the ground.

She stills, the empty cart coming to an abrupt stop between a row of high chairs and a lone breast pump. “What are you talking about?” Alex asks, bewildered and completely done trying to follow Kara’s ridiculous train of thought.

Kara shrugs once more, peering innocently at her older sister as if she hadn’t just one, announced her sexuality to the whole of Kmart, two, all but stolen a chocolate bar off of an unsuspecting shelf, and three, essentially implied that it was possible to suddenly wake up independently impregnated.

“I’m not paying for that chocolate bar” Alex mutters before pushing the shopping cart off in the opposite direction.

“Hey!” yelps Kara, jogging to catch up to Alex, chocolate bar still firmly in place. “No changing the subject. Why are we buying baby stuff?”

“ _I’m_ buying ‘baby stuff’ because i took your advice”

It takes full a minute before Kara’s face lights up, realisation dawning on her.

“Wait, you met her?! What’s she like?”

Alex tries to roll her eyes at her sister’s enthusiasm but can’t help the small, stubborn half-smile that begins to form on her face. “She’s… young, twenty? Twenty-one maybe? I mean, we’ve only spoken a couple of times but she’s...” Alex chews at her lower lip, trying to prevent a rapidly approaching blush from forming in response to all the descriptive words rushing through her mind ‘fill in the gap’ style.

“..Cool” she finishes, clearing her throat. “She uh, seems pretty cool.”

It’s a safe enough adjective to settle on, one that won't cause Kara to spontaneously combust or read into things that most definitely were not there. “A little bossy maybe, but i guess that just comes with being a mom. And her kid, Kara she’s the cutest thing _ever,_ it’s actually ridiculous, Ruby is ridic-”

Alex’s mouth quickly snaps shut, eyes narrowed in suspicion, suddenly noticing the strange way that Kara is regarding her.

“...Why are you looking at me like that?”

Kara’s response of choice is an honestly unsettling grin. “Alex, you made a friend!” she says, fists balled happily at her mouth. “Finally!”

“I’d hardly call it a friendship”

“And yet here you are” says Kara, making a sweeping motion at the formula aisle they were currently stuck in the center of. An aisle that Alex and her linkage obsessed brain cells definitely didn’t need to be anywhere near.

She makes an emergency U-turn towards a row of swaddle blankets.

“Not to mention the fact that you’ve actually made a _list_ ” Kara empathizes, emphatic, before bouncing over to relieve Alex of said list. Her eyes widen “bullet points Alex? And is that... highlighter?”

Alex snatches the list back with a glare.

“I just wanted to know how i could help” she says, pocketing the small piece of paper, scowl still firmly in place. “I mean, she’s all alone and i read that when babies are feeling particularly fussy they can be calmed with a pacifier, or a gentle swinging motion, or even by white noise. Apparently it reminds them of the sounds in the womb or something”

There’s an owlish look on Kara’s face as she blinks, taken aback. “...You did research?”

“Why are you making that face?”

“What face?” Kara asks innocently, as if she wasn’t still making the damn face. “There is no face”

Alex stifles a groan, of course it’s occurred to her that what she was doing could potentially be seen as a little strange. Hell, she knows that she herself would feel somewhat perturbed if a neighbour she barely knew decided to suddenly show up with a bag full of ‘helpful gifts’.

Alex deflates, all the drinking must be finally getting to her head. “This is weird isn’t it? I'm being weird”

“No, no, hey” says Kara, all humour stripped from her tone. “What you’re trying do for this woman is great Alex, and I know that you hate it when i say this but you have such a big heart, you really do, and i never want you to feel bad or embarrassed because of it, ok?”

There’s a gentle hand on Alex’s forearm and a soft smile on Kara’s face. “She’ll love it”

At fourteen, angry and confused, Alex could never have imagined that she would ever grow to love the strange, blonde girl who took up too much space in her parent’s heart as much as she did now.

She couldn’t imagine her life without her.

“You sure?” Alex asks, glad that Kara hasn’t decided to question why this suddenly means so much to her. It’s a question that Alex herself isn’t even sure _she_ knows the answer to.

“As sure as i am that tomorrow is Taco Tuesday” says Kara, her soft smile stretching out into a fully fledged Cheshire grin. It’s infectious and Alex can’t help but feel a little lighter.

“So come on, what’s first on that list?”

Alex pulls the small, scrap of paper out of her pocket. “Pacifiers”  

“Well let’s go get some”

“...Hey Kara”

“Yeah?”

“I’m still not buying that chocolate bar”

 

###

She doesn't know why she ever thought she could do this.

Dual doctoral degrees were for people who had it together, people who could actually complete assignments on time and function properly without aching for a drink.

People like her parents, not their mess of a daughter.

The worst thing is, Alex _knows_ she has the capacity for it, but what she lacks is the willpower, because she’s not diligent enough, responsible enough, motivated enough, dedicated enough, resourceful enough—

_Good enough._

There’s an inch thick stack of bad transcripts burnt into the forefront of Alex’s sluggish mind, and liquor stained warning notices hidden in what feels like every corner of her apartment and all she just wants to drink until she forgets, forgets the fact that she _knows_ her father would be ashamed of her if he were still here.

She wishes she was more like Kara.

She's sure her mother does too.

It’s five p.m., too early to lose herself in the pulsating beat of an overcrowded nightclub, but too late to start over. The weighty textbook in her lap remains open on the same page it’s been on for the last thirty minutes, at least half of which was spent rereading the same _riveting_ paragraph on 'scaffold bio-materials.'

The textbook closes with a heavy thud. There’s a bar a few blocks down, it’s a purposefully melancholy place that seems almost perpetually empty and is definitely not the atmosphere she’s looking for. Right now, however, any place seems better than _this_.

Alex stands, quickly dumping the overpriced textbook on the floor before moving towards a jacket hung on the door. She’s in the process of sliding her arms through the leather sleeves when her eyes suddenly land on a pile of plastic bags waiting at the door.

Kara had gotten ‘somewhat’ carried away, apparently having constructed her very own list of ‘vital baby accessories’ that had included, but not been limited to: a tiny woolly hat made to look like a doctor’s cap, a dinosaur onesie, multiple swaddle blankets in what felt like every colour of the electromagnetic spectrum and a financially ill-advised rocker that she’d somehow managed to sneak into the cart.

That had been over a week ago and Alex’s only excuse for not delivering the package to its intended owners was, simply put, a terrible case of the chicken-shit.

_WAAAAAH!_

Alex flinches, the sound that had once sent set her blood boiling was now able to send her heart racing. With what exactly, was yet to be determined. Although, as her gaze drifts back to the bags, options weighed heavily on each hand, Alex wonders whether dread was in fact the cause of what felt like sudden-onset tachycardia rather than the ‘joyful start of something new’ that Kara had been all but singing about.

She glances towards the pile one last time before finally zipping her jacket up with a groan.

Next time she was dragging Kara along with her.

Ruby’s cries have long since stopped by the time Alex has gathered up the courage to knock on the door. There’s moment of complete silence before the door cracks open and Sam appears, slightly flushed and more than a little frazzled.

“Alex, hey, what’s up?” greets Sam, all the while shooting distracted glances back into the apartment. The narrow angle of the door means that only her head is visible and it’s a clear indication that now is definitely not a good time.

Alex clears her throat, already regretting her impulsive actions. “Hey, hi, i thought you could use--i, uh.. got you some” she stifles a wince, deciding instead to let the copious bags do the talking, her grasp on the English language clearly failing her. She holds them up while trying for a smile that hopefully doesn’t come across as the poorly hidden grimace it is.

“Housewarming gift?... It’s a thing i do.. Sometimes”

Sam stares at the myriad of bags, surprise and confusion clear in her expression. Her eyes dart away from the bags and up towards Alex’s face and then back down again before she cautiously accepts the large bundle.

“Wow, thanks. This is a.. Wow this is a lot”

The frayed stitching in Alex’s left sleeve threatens to become a not-so-fashionable thumb-hole as her fingers anxiously worry the material. “Sorry, this is—is this weird?”

Sam makes a face, biting at her lip. “Maybe a little” she admits

“..Yeah” Alex looks away, mentally cursing her sister. “I thought so”

There’s a lapse of awkward silence as Alex stares down the empty hallway, unable to meet Sam’s eyes. She sighs “sorry, i’ll just g—”

“--You wanna come in?”

Alex blinks, more than a little disorientated. An invitation inside was the last thing she’d expected, a restraining order being somewhere near the first. Sam’s slightly flushed neck and expectant gaze, however, suggests that this particular act of impulsivity wasn’t going to be one requiring the involvement of law enforcement.

Kara would probably be proud of that.

Sam gives an encouraging smile, most likely mistaking Alex’s dumbfounded silence for trepidation. She gestures her head inside the apartment “you can come in, I don’t bite”

It’s probably one of the worst things that she could have said, because now all Alex wants to do is either combust, flee or stay in this awkwardly fanciful moment for the rest of time.

“I’ll hold you to that” is what she says instead, a distracted quip through a suddenly dry mouth.

Stepping foot into Sam’s apartment is a whole experience in itself, because although the general layout and furnishing of their apartments were similar there was a stark difference in the _feel_ of the place, enough so that, while being almost identical they were also the exact opposite.

Sam’s apartment held a certain ‘fullness’ in the very chasm where Alex’s did not.

It was unshakable, the sterility that engulfed the four walls of Alex’s apartment, a weight that even after two years of her living there refused to abate. She had tried filling the hollow spaces with trivial things; artificial house-plants, half-empty bookshelves and outdated surfing awards, if for no other reason than to lose the overwhelming sense of emptiness. However, that, if anything had only managed to make the matter worse.

“Sorry about the mess”

The overstated ‘mess’ was what Alex quickly found herself lost in next. A story told solely in scattered baby socks, empty coffee mugs and precariously positioned picture books. She catches sight of a worn pillow folded atop a rocking chair and can’t help but think of all the sleepless nights that Sam must have spent in that very seat, completely unaware of her testy—and most likely hungover—neighbour cursing their very existence a few doors down.

“Oh this is nothing, you should see my place after sister night” Alex responds, suddenly noticing Ruby in the center of the room, happily kicking around on a padded playmat.

“Hey baby. Look, Alex is here”

Ruby lets out an unhappy mewl as she's picked up, clearly displeased at being separated from the family of hanging monkeys and understandably uninterested in her awkward neighbour stood loitering in the front room.

Sam lowers herself into a chair, Ruby balanced on one knee as she begins looking through the bags at her feet. “Should we see what Alex got you?” she whispers in an overly excited tone, causing Ruby to break out into a wide, gummy smile.

It’s unnerving watching Sam silently rifle through the same bags that Alex had spent the last seven days both ignoring and obsessing over. She sits down opposite the distracted pair, unable to spend another second stood nervously by the front door.

There’s a moment while wordlessly watching mother and baby interact where Alex feels completely out of her depth and almost juvenile. It was a feeling not too dissimilar from what she’d felt while trying—and ultimately failing—to impress her supervisor with an elaborate and overly convoluted research proposal. Unlike her initial proposal, however, Sam doesn’t seem set on rejecting Alex’s substantial offering.

Sam pulls a set of colourful pacifiers out from one of the bags with an exaggerated gasp that has Ruby wiggling excitedly. “Should we open it up?” she says, before popping a purposefully chosen blue pacifier in Ruby’s eager mouth.

The sight of Ruby completely matched out in blue, her stork onesie the exact same shade as the bobbing pacifier in her mouth is more than enough to chip away at Alex’s anxiousness.

“You really didn’t have to do all this”

“I know, i just.. wanted to” Alex says truthfully, and it’s almost comical how there’s something about Sam that turns her into both the world’s biggest liar and the most truthful she’s ever been.

Sam watches Alex with an indecipherable expression though there’s something in her gaze that seems skeptical, as if someone choosing, of their own violation, to help was a concept far too good to be true. The look quickly disappears as she reaches down once more, pulling out a thick roll of swaddle blankets. Sam’s eyes widen and Alex just smiles, giving a shrug in response.

“You’re a saint” Sam breathes in complete awe, a CD of ‘Super Serene & Soothing White Noise’ in hand.

It feels good.

“Hardly”

“I’m serious, honestly, i don’t know how to thank you” Sam says and Alex tries not to scoff because she’s already been thanked at least ten times over in the way that Sam’s eyes had lit up, and in the stretching of Ruby’s toothless mouth into a winsome smile and in the way that she’s now able to see, even if she can’t quite yet understand, that there was more to life than academics and the crummy way failure felt.

So maybe she should be the one thanking them.

She doesn’t say any of this, of course not. Though for a moment Alex fears that she might have done with the way the air seems to hang almost heavy in the room. She averts her gaze, fearful that all the things she’s spent the last couple of weeks striving to push down and rid herself of might come flooding out in just a single look, and so she doesn’t know whether to be relieved or remorseful when the strangely charged atmosphere is abruptly shattered by the piercing shriek of a smoke alarm.

“Shit”

Ruby immediately bursts into tears.

Sam jumps up, her alarmed gaze shooting back and forth between the smoking pot on the stove and her distressed daughter. She’s clearly overwhelmed, lost in the of the chaos of the hectic moment. There’s a sliver of calm, however, as Sam’s eyes suddenly find purchase on Alex, her alarm giving way to something like relief.

“Can you take her for a moment?” Sam yells over both the alarm and Ruby.

The decidedly unsure “sure” is halfway out of Alex’s mouth when Ruby is quickly deposited into her arms.

Alex blinks, stood stiffly while holding a screaming baby who might as well have been an alien in her arms. Ruby flails hysterically and its takes Kara’s exasperated voice in Alex’s head telling her that she wouldn’t be surprised if she felt more at ease with an _actual_ alien, for Alex to pull herself together.

She lowers herself onto the couch, gently rocking Ruby back and forth in a futile attempt to calm her.

There’s another curse from the kitchen as the shrieking finally stops, the harsh sounds quickly muted to soft beeps as Sam continues fiddling with the alarm, apparently winning the battle against the device.

Ruby,  unplacated by her mother’s victory, continues to scream, terrified, and although Alex may have the ability to solve complex bioengineering problems while on the wrong side of tipsy, helping Sam out by calming her daughter is something she fails miserably at.

Alex turns Ruby towards her so that the red, tear stained face faces her head on and begins doing the only thing that she knows how to do in this type of situation, she begin to ramble.

“Hey, come on smoke alarms aren’t scary, no way. Honestly, this all seems like a little bit of an overreaction if you ask me” Alex says while slowing beginning to bounce Ruby in her lap. “You wanna know what’s really scary? Stove fires” she states matter-of-factly, eyebrows raised comically.

_“Waaaaaaaaah!”_

“See now that’s _definitely_ a stove fire cry and trust me, i would know, i’m pretty much an expert at this point, yep” says Alex, popping the ‘p’ in an ridiculous way that causes a small puff of air to hit Ruby’s face. There’s a brief hitch in the screaming as Ruby’s nose screws up—almost like she’s about to sneeze—before the crying starts back up again, though at a lessened intensity.

“But i guess that’s what i get for trying to deep fry without a deep fryer. It was all Kara’s fault really, not that she would ever admit it. Ten years later and she’s _still_ in denial” the laborious sigh that follows Alex’s words is met by a chubby fist attempting to grab at the expelled air.

Ruby watches Alex with soulful eyes, her cries giving way to wet sniffles.

“Do you wanna know what else was Kara’s fault? The microwave blowing up, actually, you know what? That might have been mine, i’ll take full responsibility for that one... and for the dishwasher. But what happened with the blender was _definitely_ Kara’s fault, one hundred percent”

The tug of her sleeve comes as a surprise and when Alex looks down she’s met with the unexpected sight of Ruby attempting to eat the sleeve of her leather jacket.

“So what i'm getting from all this is that i should probably keep you away from my kitchen appliances” comes Sam’s amused drawl as she strolls over, a dish towel draped over one shoulder.

Alex grins, watching Sam cross her arms and raise a playful brow, her saliva coated sleeve completely forgotten. “That would probably be for the best”

The smile that she gets back in response is enough to render Alex’s heart a useless mass of cardiac cells, each one leaping in time to it’s very own rhythm.

“Come here you” Sam cooes, reaching her arms out towards Ruby who quickly decides to recommence with the screaming.

Sam jerks back, a confused frown etched into her features as she attempts to reach for her daughter once more and is met with the same result. Realisation seems to wash over her as she pinches the edge of her blouse, bringing it up to her nose.

“God, it must be the smoke. I reek of it”

Alex nods passively, dubious that the three month old was yet capable of distinguishing between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ odors. “I can hold her until she settles a little, i don’t mind” she offers.

Sam groans, visibly in the middle of an internal debate. “I can’t let you just _sit_ here and hold her Alex. You’re probably busy, i mean, you’re a college student and it’s  _Friday evening_ ”

It’s that statement more than anything that increases Alex’s desire to stay. Going out was the very last thing she needed to be doing and still she _knows_ that if she goes back to her apartment it’ll only be a matter of time before she’s making her way to a bar or club or anywhere else that serves alcohol with a side of ‘unhealthy coping mechanism’.

“It’s no problem, i’m not busy. Besides she’s great” says Alex, clapping Ruby’s doughy hands together with a wide smile. “Aren’t you, you’re great” she sings in a high pitched voice that would probably have Kara doing a triple take.

Sam still looks a little unsure but seems to accept the offer. “Ok, let me make you something to eat then, are you hungry?”

“Starving actually”

There’s a chuckle as Sam shakes her head at Alex’s eager tone. “Well don’t get your hopes up too high, between moving here and looking after this one, refining my culinary skills hasn’t taken much of a priority”

Alex grins “I have faith”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Abrupt ending because all my fics are a hot mess


End file.
